Reviews

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Another series I really liked at first~ (｡◕‿◕｡)✨
But after about 20 episodes, I started to feel tired 😅

I’m used to long series, but this one was probably the toughest~ it actually took me around 1.5 years to finally finish it 😮‍💨

This series truly felt like a rollercoaster 🎢🌸

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🌸✨🌈 Hiii~ Welcome to my kawaii corner~ ♡(≧▽≦)ﾉ✨🌸

You can find more of my reviews on Instagram~ 🌟💖

Check my homepage for my account~ (｡♥‿♥｡) 🌷

Some reviews are under 500 words, so I can’t post them here~ (≧ω≦)ﾉ💫

Thank you sooo much~ ☆:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:☆ 💕🌸

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Fiery chemistry in this jiejie romance drama set in the art world

I was browsing drama catalogue and this drama's pister caught my attention. It had been awhile since I last watched Zhao Xi Xi's work. Glad I watched this drama because it was good.

What I liked:
1. Romance - Damn spicy intimate scenes. I felt like they were going to combust everytime they made out. This is a jiejie romance with ML devoting himself to FL's cause.
2. FL characterisation - She was desperate, she put her mother’s need first. I liked the fact that she's knowledgeable in art.
3. ML characterisation - Hidden identity out to investigate SML. ML was devoted, talented & sneaky.
4. Acting - Great performances by Zhao Xi Xi and Su You Cai. Damn, the chemistry was fiery.
5. Visuals - Stunning leads + beautiful paintings.
6. Editing - Beautifully shot scenes from the paintings to the intimate scenes.

What I disliked:
1. Antagonist - SML was a jerk for taking advantagr of vulnerable woman. I also disliked SML's sister for her rude beahviour.

Favourite scene
When FL kissed ML at his house

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Black River aka Kuroi Kawa reminded me of one of my least favorite Kurosawa Akira films, The Lower Depths. Like Lower Depths, this film is centered in a decaying tenement filled with unlikeable people. The underlying theme of the society decaying as well after WWII became lost for me in the toxic “love” triangle and reprehensible view of women. Please forgive me if I change up my normal review style for diary writings of the main characters. Warning-A disturbing event that happens early in the film is mentioned.

Dear Diary,
I recently moved into a slum with a cranky landlady. She’s probably that way because only one tenant pays the rent. The local communist tries to talk the tenants into paying their fair share of the electricity bill and poop removal, but no one seems very interested in it. I just want to be left alone with my books while I’m studying civil engineering. Holes in the wall and nosy neighbors make it difficult. The house husband next door constantly bothers me. His wife works at a “salon” and is always coming onto me in her slip. I think she might be a prostitute. In fact, most of the women wander around in their slips and are either hitting on me or watching others have sex through the holes in the walls. Thinking I might be living in a house full of perverts. I have fallen in love with a beautiful waitress who picked up one of my books that had fallen in the street. New entry-she ditched a date we had for her to “borrow” some books to hook up with the local gang leader, Joe the Killer. Heartbroken, will continue to focus on my studies. Believe one of my pervy neighbors is stealing my things.—Nishida Kenzo

Dear Diary,
Work as a waitress is going well. I take the same route every day with my parasol. I picked up a book a fellow dropped and kismet! I think I’m completely in love. I have a date to “borrow” more books. Latest development-last night on my way to see the student, I was roughly kidnapped by a group of men. Another man beat them off and saved me! Then he threw me on the ground, declared his love for me, and brutally raped me. I, of course, went to him the next day and demanded he marry me. Joe the Killer laughed at me. Guess I’m stuck with this loser after losing my virginity to him. What a ridiculous name for a gangster, must get him to change it. Maybe Joe the Delusional Rapist? Will play the part of a tart and dress more seductively. I should leave him but I am strangely attracted to his brand of violent affection…Think I will write a love letter to that book nerd to keep my options open. Love, Shizuko

Dear Diary,
Things are going my way. Have talked the crooked landlady into hiring me to drive out her tenants so that we and my business partner can build a “Love Hotel.” Last night I wooed the good girl in town and convinced her that violence is how I show affection. Women are so stupid. I also take particular delight in tormenting her and that idiot student she loves. Everything is great! Yay me! –Joe the Killer

Black River had some important insights into life after WWII outside an American military base that became uselessly bogged down in the “love” triangle. Rape as foreplay will never sit well with me. Despite strong performances from Nakadai Tatsuya and Arima Ineko and a somewhat satisfying ending, the whole triangle premise left a bad misogynistic taste in my mouth.

1 February 2026
Trigger warnings: Implied rape and sexual situations though nothing shown. Physical abuse of women which was shown.

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the power of love

i love the story, tho lots of questions needs an answer of how it happens, yet it could be covered by "because of love'.
because of love - everything became possible, craziness became amusing - that's how i find their story.

though the 2nd couple gives me off, but thru them in the later episodes, Haiming & Huan'ers love for each other became stronger, that whatever will happen to them - the warmth of their affection for each other will always be within.

i like the loyalty of Gao Haiming 's assistant, a typical one and portrayed well.

All in all - the story is fun to watch... plus the couples played it well...

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Cute & funny drama with entertaining supporting character

Liu Xi Yu has started to impress me with her acting these days. I know she has many dramas listed in IQIYI catalogue so a few weeks ago I decided to watch this drama. It was enjoyable.

What I liked:
1. Plot - Refreshing, Funny especially when FL's brother appeared on screen.
2. FL characterisation - Cute but not cloying. She was rich girl but not spoilt brat.
3. ML characterisation - Cold exterior but dude had massive crush on FL. He was Mr Nice Guy.
4. Acting - Great performances by Liu Xi Yu, Liu Lan Bo and the actor who played FL's brother.
5. Supporting characters - I really liked FL’s brother. His scenes were always entertaining. I also liked FL's best friend and ML's assistant.
6. Dynamic - I really loved the interactions between FL and her brother. They loved & helped out each other. No stupid arguments.

What I disliked:
1. Antagonists - I disliked the snobbish classmate who was jealous of FL. I also disliked the scumbag who tried to rape FL.

Favourite scene
When ML & FL communicated no verbally with FL's brother standing nearby

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When I first started watching, I got hooked right away~ (｡◕‿◕｡)✨

But somewhere in the middle, something changed. I stopped watching for a while and felt a bit tired of it 😅

Still, I didn’t give up! It took some time, but I finally finished the series 🌸✨

In the end, I really liked the theme of the story 💖

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🌸✨🌈 Hiii~ Welcome to my kawaii corner~ ♡(≧▽≦)ﾉ✨🌸

You can find more of my reviews on Instagram~ 🌟💖

Check my homepage for my account~ (｡♥‿♥｡) 🌷

Some reviews are under 500 words, so I can’t post them here~ (≧ω≦)ﾉ💫

Thank you sooo much~ ☆:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:☆ 💕🌸

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Still waiting for it to click

My Page in The 90s is about a modern-day love advice streamer gets pulled into a cheesy late 20th century romance novel, she finds herself entangled with a cold CEO archetype and forced to play out a love story she never signed up for.

But honestly? This drama spends its entire runtime almost convincing you it has something interesting to say, but then stopping just short of actually saying it.

On paper, this is a classic transmigration setup. Lin Huan’er is initially sharp, pragmatic, and refreshingly clear about her goal: she wants to go back to her own reality.

Huan’er works fine on a surface level. She’s fun, reactive, and decently written. But the second you try to dig underneath that surface, there’s nothing there. Her emotional interior is frustratingly underdeveloped. We’re told she wants to return to her world, but we’re never shown why. What is she leaving behind? A family? Friends? A career she cares about? A life she built? We have no idea. And that becomes an issue later on, when she suddenly decides she might not want to go back after all.

This is, in my opinion, one of the most grotesquely common flaws in transmigration stories: the protagonist’s original life is treated as disposable. Wanting to return becomes a purely logical stance at the start, and abandoning that desire later is framed as emotional growth. Except it isn’t, because there was never anything tangible to give up in the first place. It makes her choice feel hollow because there is nothing to compare it to. Does she truly find something worth staying for, or does the story simply stop caring about the question?

Then there’s Gao Haiming. He is the hyper-competent, emotionally constrained CEO who is secretly warm, loyal, and willing to burn the world down for the woman he loves. Nothing grounds breaking, but decent enough.

Chemistry is another stance in which the story wobbles. It almost works. There are moments, especially in the very last episodesof the drama, where you can see what the writers were aiming for. But for a long time, I felt… nothing. Not even during scenes that were clearly meant to be intense or intimate. Their affection doesn’t feel like it grows, it just appears. One moment there’s emotional distance, the next we’re meant to accept that something deep and irrevocable has formed between them.

A significant chunk of the runtime is spent on Huan’er running away from her feelings, and it feels like a way to avoid doing the actual work of building the relationship. Those episodes would have been far better used letting us watch the affection develop organically, rather than being told it exists.

Secondary characters don’t help. Most of them are painfully uninteresting. Zhu Mengmeng starts off as someone who at least feels relevant to Huan’er’s story, but as the drama progresses, the narrative splits into parallel tracks that intersect every now and then. It ends up feeling like two separate dramas awkwardly stitched together, instead of a cohesive world where relationships actually matter.

Performance-wise, this drama is frustrating. I’m already familiar with Chen Xingxu, and he is undeniably a very good actor. This was my first time watching anything with Wang Yuwen, but she leaves a good impression. Which is precisely why some scenes are so hard to get through. The emotional beats don’t always land, and when they don’t, it feels less like an acting issue and more like a directing and pacing problem.

And the ending? Lazy and emotionally unsatisfying.

I don’t want to get into spoilers, but I have a deep dislike for abrupt endings that simply happen. No explanation, no thematic resolution, no real invitation for interpretation, just a narrative shrug that suggests the writers were tired and wanted to be done. It doesn’t feel open-ended in a mysterious and intricate way, it feels unfinished.

What makes all of this more frustrating is that the drama repeatedly comes close to being good, but it never quite gets there. It gestures at depth without committing to it, sets up questions it doesn’t want to answer, and relies too heavily on familiar tropes without doing enough to justify them.

In the end, this is a drama that had all the necessary components: a capable cast, a workable premise, and moments of genuine charm. But instead of fully committing to its ideas, it settles for “good enough” and for a story about rewriting fate and choosing one’s own ending, that feels especially disappointing.

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Anxiety as a genre, complicity as the message.

Shamelessly bizarre. And that’s why I love it. One of the reasons horror is my favorite genre is the fact there are no real limits in storytelling and presentation. You are only limited by your own imagination. With years of cinema, all stories have been told one way or another, so I truly believe now it’s less about what you say, but how you say it. And Best Regards to All goes with a bang. Full of uneasy shots that make you want to look away, but also glue your eyes to the screen - not relying on cheap jumpscares. It’s less about feeling scared, and more about feeling anxious and uncomfortable.

With all that creepiness, it still presents a rather solid, yet horrifying message of generational and social exploitation with a grim outlook on life and happiness. But what’s most important - how much suffering of others we can ignore to keep the illusion of normalcy and peacefulness in our own life. Especially relevant in the current global climate. If you came out of this movie assuming you are not part of the problem, you are in denial.

Be it visually or in terms of themes presented, it’s frustrating, unnerving and uncomfortable to watch. Yes, I am perfectly aware I keep overusing the word “uncomfortable”, but that’s the perfect word to describe the movie. It makes you confront things you rather ignore.

For the acting, Furukawa Kotone ate the role. The whole slow and painful journey to self-realization was presented in a perfect manner. The will to fight what she thought to be unjust tradition, the denial of what’s truly going on, the fear of creeping consequences, the resignation when faced with what she thought in unreasonable pushback. From opening to closing shot - perfect.

In terms of production and directing, some practical make up could have been better, especially around the eyes - it would not work in reality as they presented on screen and somehow I could not let that thought go. Except for that tiny detail, it was great - the blood and wounds looked real and that’s all one can ask for from horror movies. I also appreciated well placed and timed repetitiveness of the shots in different time points and contexts.

Overall, it’s just my type of fucked up shit.

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I’m not sure why, but I didn't really like the drama. Either the plot was presented in a strange way, or I just wasn't interested in it that much. I didn't feel any chemistry between Chen Xing Xu and Yu Wen. There wasn't any spark between them. Yu Wen's performance was rather lacking or maybe it was just her way of portraying the character. I'm not familiar with her previous works, so I can't say for sure if it was her acting or her character that turned me off. However, I'm already familiar with XingXu, and I'm once again impressed by his acting. He truly excels in such roles! I really loved his character!
The drama is easy to watch and it’s also short, so it's worth watching at least once. I won't be too critical, as I didn't have high expectations for it. The ending is happy, so it's not that bad.

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appreciating drama!

Honestly, Big Mouth was a great drama. What I liked most were the plot twists. There were many moments when I thought I understood what was happening, only for the story to completely change. It kept things exciting and made it hard to stop watching.

The story felt smart and tense. I appreciated how it gradually revealed the truth instead of giving everything away all at once. The characters were interesting, and I found myself constantly guessing whom to trust and who was really in control.

Overall, it’s one of those dramas that keeps you on edge and makes you want to click “next episode” immediately. It’s definitely worth watching if you enjoy thrillers with a lot of twists.

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Actual feeling

More Than Blue isn’t just a love story. It’s a quiet ache that sits in your chest and refuses to leave.
This drama speaks about pure, selfless love — the kind that doesn’t ask to be chosen, doesn’t demand promises, and doesn’t even need to be confessed. It’s the love that stays. The love that holds your hand in the darkest moments of life, even when the person holding it is slowly breaking inside.
K and Cream don’t love loudly. Their love lives in small things: shared meals, unfinished sentences, silent understanding. It’s the kind of bond where words become unnecessary, because caring is already woven into every breath. And that’s what makes it so devastating. They care too much. They love too deeply. And because of that, they choose pain — not for themselves, but for each other.
What hurts the most is how real it feels. This is not fantasy love. This is real emotion — loving someone so much that you’d rather suffer alone than let them hurt. Staying strong while your heart is breaking. Smiling so the other person doesn’t see your fear. Letting go, not because love faded, but because love was too big to be selfish.
The series captures the truth that sometimes love doesn’t get a happy ending — but it still remains beautiful. Even in loss. Even in silence. Even after goodbye.
By the end, you’re not just crying for the characters. You’re crying for the love you’ve given, the love you’ve lost, and the love you were never brave enough to say out loud. More Than Blue reminds us that true love isn’t about staying forever — it’s about choosing someone’s happiness over your own, even when it completely breaks your heart.
This drama doesn’t leave you feeling empty. It leaves you feeling human — tender, wounded, and reminded that loving deeply, even when it hurts, is still worth it.
If you’ve ever loved someone quietly…
If you’ve ever stayed when it was hard…
If you’ve ever let go while still loving…

This series will understand you. ?

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Fun fluffy romcom with some retro vibes

Looking for a funny fluffy romcom with some retro vibes and a nice chemistry between the leads ? This is it!
The episode are not so long so you quite don't see time passes by. The leads are endearing, not too mature but not too childish either, I felt like it was well balanced. We got plenty cute accessories reminding us of the 90s, lol. And I found the plot quite fun. It's really mainly comedy. And the ending is also satisfying. I was scared because I got trauma from transmigration dramas but this one did not disappoint. The only reason why I don't give it a 10 is the second leads. The friend of the leads, that are set to be a couple too, are boring. Their characters don't bring anything to the story. They feel useless and have no chemistry. Not having them would have change nothing to the story, unfortunaltely, they're not impadtful whatsoever. And their love story is really so-so...

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